3 dead, 1 critically injured in New South Wales shooting

International

THREE people died and another one was in critical condition after a gun attack in the small town of Lake Cargelligo, New South Wales, Australia.

Emergency services were called to a residential area at around 4:40 p.m. local time (05:40 GMT) on Thursday.

Police are searching for 37-year-old Julian Ingram in connection with the killings, a report by BBC said.

Authorities said a man and a woman were found shot dead in a vehicle. A second shooting shortly afterward killed another woman and left a man hospitalized in critical condition.

Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the incident is a suspected domestic violence attack, and one of the victims is believed to be Ingram’s former partner. NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Andrew Holland declined to comment on the relationship between the gunman and the victims.

The public was urged to remain indoors, and multiple crime scenes have been established. NSW police later released a photograph of Ingram and asked the public to contact authorities with any information on his whereabouts.

"Any death in a small country town is confronting, but again, a scene where you have people shot by firearms is obviously going to make people very, very tense and very concerned," Holland said.

"The scene faced by the emergency services officers at that time would have been horrendous," he added.

Lake Cargelligo, located in central New South Wales, has a population of about 1,500. The incident comes after last month’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which killed 15 people.(Adriane Josef E. Cabase, USJ-R Comm Intern)